His Second Chance
by FreekyDisaster18
Summary: Kathy leaves Elliot and he's now realising that the first time ever, he's going to have to go it alone
1. Chapter 1

AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first attempt at a SVU fic so please be critical but nice in reviews! I do accept that my writing isn't all that but I don't want pure flames! Hope you enjoy!

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters**

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**[His Second Chance]**

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"It's over," she whispered through her tears and he couldn't help but wonder how many times she had said that to him but she'd always come back. Everyone said it was because their love was too strong to be broken but he knew the truth. She needed his support. She wasn't strong enough to look after their children alone. This time though he could hear that this was it. This was their final goodbye. He nodded his head as he pressed a kiss to her forehead, his hands resting on her shoulders as he thought of all the years they'd spent together.

Everyone had told them that it wouldn't last. They'd married too young and followed by that, they had children too young but they'd been determined to prove them all wrong despite the fact that his first love was his career. He'd drop everything just to be at work and especially now when their relationship was restrained.

"I know," he admitted as he moved away from her. "I'm unsure how I'm going to cope without you though." He said not afraid of showing his weakness. He'd never been alone. She'd always been there to make sure that he ate on jobs that lasted days and she was always phoning him to remind him that he has family.

She laughed as she ran her hand down his cheek before smiling, "you'll survive." She whispered through her tears as she reached up and pressed a kiss to his lips. "You always do." She stepped away from him. "We'll need to sort out a plan with the children..." Her conversation ended with the sound of his mobile ringing. She couldn't help but smile at the irony. "Goodbye Elliot," she just left without finishing her sentence.

He stared after her for a few minutes before answering the mobile as it started to ring for the second time. "Stabler," he responded. "I'll be right there." He confirmed hanging up and grabbing his coat.

His last thought as he left the house was that he was going to look for an apartment.

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Olivia was worried about Elliot's uncharacteristic quiet behaviour. He'd allowed her to do all the talking with the victim's mother and when the ex-boyfriend has caused problems, she'd been the one pinning him to the wall and reading him his rights. That was normally the job that he enjoyed doing. They were back at the precinct and Elliot had gone upstairs to the crib. Olivia watched after him.

"What's biting Stabler?" Munch asked swinging on his chair, his hands playing with the ball that he kept on his desk. She raised her shoulders.

"You don't know?" Fin said shaking his head, "damn baby girl you always know what's wrong with that guy!" She turned to glare at him and he laughed. "Sorry. I would suggest talking to him though. He's going to blow up eventually and I wouldn't like to be the person at the other end of that particular storm!" Olivia didn't really want to be that person but she agreed with Fin. Someone needed to talk to Elliot. She started up towards the crib.

"El?" She said softly seeing him lying down on one of the beds, his gaze just staring at the ceiling. She walked over to him and stood there for a minute before sighing. "Budge up." He looked at her with his eyebrows raised. There was no way the two of them would be able to lie on the bed so he swung himself up so that he was sitting up. She sat down across from him and just waited patiently.

"Aren't you going to interrogate me?" He demanded to know and she looked over at him, her lips pursed as she sighed.

"Is that what you want?" He thought it over for a minute and shook his head. Olivia was the one person that he could talk to about anything without even being prompted so he didn't know why he was being an ass now.

"She left me," she went to say something but he cut her off, "and this time it's the real deal. We're going to arrange custody for the children and..." he stopped talking for a minute as he looked up at her. "I'm going to be alone. I've never been alone before." She just sighed before squeezing his shoulder.

"Oh Elliot, I'm so sorry." She whispered as she leant in to hug him. Olivia and Kathy had never seen eye to eye because of the woman's insane jealousy for how close Elliot and Olivia are but that hadn't stopped her from seeing that Elliot had loved something in his wife. "You'll do just fine," she promised him. He held onto her for a few more minutes before pulling away.

"Could you cover for me?" He asked. "I just need to go for a walk and clear my head." She nodded which gave him the permission he needed to leave. Olivia stayed up in the crib for a short while longer.

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It was probably the first night in a long time that Elliot Stabler walked through his front door in time for dinner. It also happened to be the first time that his family weren't waiting to see him. He chuckled sadly at the irony as he moved to the fridge where there were leftovers from last night's dinner and a six pack of beer. He grabbed a bottle and moved to the couch. One good thing was that he had control of the TV.

The rap on his door caused him to lean his head back as if he was trying to look through the wood. His plan of action was that if he ignored them, they would go away. That didn't seem to be happening as their knocking got more persistent. He sighed as he moved towards the front door and opened it to see Olivia stood there. "Liv?" He said shocked.

"I don't know why I came here," she admitted truthfully as she moved inside and allowing him to help her out of her coat. "I just kept hearing you say that you was going to be alone and you couldn't..."

"Oh Liv, I didn't mean for that to worry you! I'm not stupid enough to do anything." She looked at him for a moment and realised that he had mistaken her and thought that she'd feared he would commit suicide. She shook her head.

"I know you'd never do that, El." She laughed looking over at him. "What I meant to say was you're not going to be alone. You've got the captain, Fin and Munch." She looked nervously down at the ground, "and me, Elliot. You should know that I'll always be with you."

"I know." He said wrapping his arms around her. "That's what friends are for." She groaned into his chest. How could someone be so knuckleheaded?

"I mean I love you," she cleared up before laughing. "Every time you came into work and told us that Kathy had walked out, I'd always thought that was my chance but she always came back and I was just left to wait another couple of months. This time, I wanted to tell you before she came back so that you know there is an..." her words were cut off by him taking hold of her lips with his. She gasped gently, her arms snaking up around his neck as she kissed him back.

When the kiss broke off, he looked down at her. "You've always loved me?" She pressed her forehead against his and nodded. "Oh Liv," he whispered kissing her again. He might have been in love with his wife for all those years but a fraction of his heart had always belonged to Olivia and with Kathy again, he was looking forward to a whole new start.


	2. Chapter 2

**AUTHORS NOTE: So you wanted this to be made into a chapter story so I decided to give it a shot. Remember it's my first attempt at an SVU story so please be nice but I do love constructive reviews to help me with my writing :)**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything**

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**[A New Case]**

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They'd fallen asleep in each other's arms, still clad in the clothes they been wearing but without a single care in the world. For the first time in what seemed forever, Olivia could sleep peacefully without waking up because of a nightmare while Elliot slept without staring quietly at the ceiling, thoughts playing erratically in his mind. That morning when they woke to the sound of Elliot's phone ringing, the felt refreshed apart from their attire and the positions they'd slept in.

Elliot reached out to grab his mobile, flashing the ID to Olivia before answering it. He waited patiently as Munch told them they had a case, he gave Elliot a brief overview before saying, "and can you get a hold of, Olivia? I've tried her house phone but she's not answering and her damned cell phone is switched off which never happens." Munch pointed out causing Elliot to grin over at his partner.

"There's a first time for everything, John." He promised before saying that he'd swing by Olivia's apartment and see what was keeping her before turning up at the station. Munch seemed happy enough with that as he ended the call. Elliot looked at his cell phone for a moment before turning to look at Olivia that had settled back down in the bed. "Oh no, we have a case Detective Benson and we don't want to piss off the cap'ain." She groaned before sitting up and looking at him.

Elliot knew what Olivia was going to tell him. No one could know about this because it was against the regulations. If they got found out, they'd be separated making it next to impossible to ever see each other and that's not what either of them wanted. He ran his hand through her hair, his fingers curling around her chin as he made her look up at him when he nodded. "I know, baby. We'll deal with this in private for now but when the time comes, we'll need to tell Cragen. If he finds out from someone else then we'll know he'll have our asses."

She smiled at him, her lips taking hold of his lightly before pushing him away and climbing out of the bed. "Detective Stabler, you have fifteen minutes to brush your teeth and change your clothes before I steal your car to go back to my apartment." She warned moving downstairs, deciding that she'd make a quick pot of coffee and some toast for them to eat as they moved.

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Arriving at the scene, Munch peered at Olivia through her glasses. "Ah breakfast on the go meaning that we were in a rush this morning," he mused before quickly stealing a slice of the toast. Olivia smiled at her fellow detective, chewing on the bite of toast she'd been eating before saying.

"Jeez John, your detective skills astound me. You'll really need to tell me how you do it someday." She teased before offering him the rest of the toast knowing that she couldn't take it down to where the body was or if she'd have the stomach to eat it afterwards. John declined the offer so she wrapped it up and forced it into her coat pockets before moving underneath the yellow tape, flashing her badge at the standing officer.

"What've we got?" She asked Elliot as she crouched down beside the Jane Doe. It was a secluded area of the park that was known for being where the prostitutes and drug dealers hung out but Olivia could tell that their victim wasn't a drug user from the lack of tracks on her bare arms and from the lack of remnants around her nose. It was also apparent that she wasn't a prostitute because the dress that she wore was expensive and Olivia was positive she'd seen it in one of the magazine's she'd read somewhere that sported the hefty label.

"The victim is called Maria Langdon," he said handing her the evidence bag that contained the victim's purse and ID. Again the purse was designer so Olivia was even surer that Maria wasn't a prostitute. She looked over at the M.E. and waited for her analysis.

"Your victim has been dead for several hours. I'd say she passed away about in the early hours, around six and seven. From the primary glance over I'd say that she was stabbed numerous times and there are definite signs of struggle around her wrists," she knelt down and pointed towards the thighs, "There's definitely signs of foul play around here as you can see there are several fingerprint shaped bruises." There was a flash of a camera as they were taken shot of causing Olivia to glare at the CSI before standing up. "I'll message you my autopsy report once I'm done, detectives."

Olivia nodded her head in agreement with the M.E. before moving up towards the yellow tape again, her hand still holding onto the evidence bag containing the young woman's person as she reached into her pockets and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. Pulling out the wallet, she rifled through the cards so that she could hunt for anything with a form of address on it and when she did, she winced before handing it over to Elliot who had also gloved up.

"Oh wow, I didn't know that the Judge had a daughter," he said turning to look at the woman and sighing. "We'll need to talk to the captain because I think he has a close friendship to the judge. Maybe he'll want to go talk to him?" He mused thinking of how many times Cragen did the speech when it was a coppers wife or child. Olivia nodded her head.

"Meet you back at the station," she said to Munch and Fin as she headed towards the car in silence. Eventually she turned to look at Elliot. "Do you think they'll work it out? Fin is quite good at reading people while John just picks at you until you cave." She pointed out and Elliot looked over his shoulder to where the partners were bickering over something and just shrugged his shoulders.

"We'll focus on that later, Liv. We've got bigger fish to fry right now," he said pointing to the purse and he knew that if she was any other woman, she'd have gone into a huff about that sentence but Olivia nodded her head and agreed with him as she climbed into the car.

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"What do we have?" Cragen demanded to know as he held the evidence bag, his distress apparent at the new victim and Olivia couldn't help but shrug her shoulders as she turned to look at Elliot.

"We're on our way to the dorms where she lived to see if anyone can tell us why she was in the woods at that hour. It was apparent from what she was wearing that she'd been out beforehand so we're hoping they can shed some light on that," he pointed out standing up and taking hold of his coat, his hand taking hold of Olivia's arm.

"Munch, Fin. I want you to go hunt down any witnesses. Speak to the guy that found her and ask if he saw anything suspicious," Munch went to say something but Cragen just looked at him, "I'm aware you'll have gone over this with the guy, John but please, it doesn't help to double check things." He pointed out and Munch nodded his head.

"Come on," he said to Fin leading him out of the building. Cragen looked down at the wallet, sighing as he realised that he hated making this calls even though he'd been making them for many years now.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


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